Agarita

Scientific Name(s): Mahonia trifoliolata
Abundance: common
What: Berries
How: raw, cooked, jam, jelly, wine, syrup, roast seeds for coffee
Where: Hill Country, dry grasslands
When: Spring
Nutritional Value: Vit. C

Medicinal Summary:
Leaves - anti-nausea (tisane, tincture, chewed)
Root/Wood - antimicrobial; antiviral; antidiarrheal (tisane, tincture, oxymel)

Agarita shrub.

Agarita flower buds (picture taken in February in the Hill Country).

Open agarita flowers (picture taken in February in the Hill Country).

Closeup of ripe and almost ripe agarita berries.

Closeup of agarita leaf.

The inner wood of agaritas is a deep yellow color due to the medicinal compound berberine.

Texas distribution, attributed to U. S. Department of Agriculture. The marked counties are guidelines only. Plants may appear in other counties, especially if used in landscaping.

North American distribution, attributed to U. S. Department of Agriculture.

The evergreen agarita is a common 2’-6’ shrub found across Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Its unusual, three-part leaves are grey-green, very stiff and pointy so harvesting their fruit can be a bit painful. The yellow flowers appear in late winter followed by red, edible fruit in the spring. Agaritas prefer dry areas with well-drained and somewhat alkaline soil along with full sun to partial shade. The shrubs usually gather around mesquite and other small trees. I haven't seen any out standing alone.

In Spring agarita shrubs are loaded with small, bright red berries. These sweet, slightly tart berries can be eaten raw or cooked in any manner one would prepare any berry such as jam, jelly, or wine. The juice from these berries has a pleasingly complex sweet and sour flavor. The small seeds can be roasted then ground for a caffeine-free coffee substitute.

Agaritas have multiple medicinal uses. The leaves can be chewed fresh or dried to help relieve nausea, especial that accompanying hangovers and motion sickness. A tea made from dried leaves will also offer relief. The yellow wood of the roots contain anti-bacterial and anti-viral compound berberine along with bitter components to help with digestion and other stomach issues such as diarrhea. The root wood is usually finely shaved and then made into a tincture with vodka.

Buy my book! Outdoor Adventure Guides Foraging covers 70 of North America's tastiest and easy to find wild edibles shown with the same big pictures as here on the Foraging Texas website.

Allegheny Chinkapin

Scientific Name(s): Castanea pumila
Abundance: rare
What: nuts
How: raw or roasted
Where: sandy, shaded areas near water
When: fall
Nutritional Value: calories, protein
Dangers: nut husks are very prickly

Allegheny Chinkapin leaves.


Close-up of leaves.


Nut pods in the fall, having dropped some of the nuts.


Close-up of pods with and without nuts.


Close-up of shelled nuts. This picture was taken a month after they had ripened and so they've begun to dry out but are still edible.


Texas distribution, attributed to U. S. Department of Agriculture. The marked counties are guidelines only. Plants may appear in other counties, especially if used in landscaping.


North American distribution, attributed to U. S. Department of Agriculture.


To stumble upon a stand of Allegheny Chinkapins is to stumble upon treasure. These large, usually multi-trunked bushes/small trees suffered from Chestnut Blight leading to reduced numbers across much of North America. A rare stand can still be found growing under larger trees in the sandy soil of tall banks overlooking water. The sandy soil gives them the drainage they need to avoid root-rot while the larger trees partially protects them from the fierce Texas sun. The long, narrow, sharply-toothed leaves, deep green on top and pale underneath, are arranged in an alternate pattern along the branches. In the spring long clusters of small, tan-yellow flowers hang from the tree. By fall these clusters have been replaced with sharp, spikey pods, each containing what looks like a small acorn.

Harvesting these nuts takes some work as they cling to the tree and are protected by the sharp, spiny remains of their outer husks. One usually has to carefully pick nuts off the shrub/tree one by one. You are likely to find some of the nuts have already germinated while still attached to the tree. Don't eat these but instead carefully plant them nearby.

Allegheny Chinkapin nuts lack tannins or other bitter compounds and so have a sweet, nutty flavor when eaten raw. Being so rare, limit yourself to just a nut or three. Take a few more to plant in similar locations so as to try and bring back this amazingly delicious treat. Animals love these nuts so getting them before squirrels, raccoons, possums and the such is tricky.

Like chestnuts, Allegheny Chinkapin nuts can be roasted to give almost a chocolatey sort of flavor. Place the uncracked nuts on a cookie sheet in an oven at 350F. After five minutes pull out a nut, crack it open and taste it. The roasting time is a personal preference but if the nuts' shells begin cracking it's definitely time to pull them out.

If you do over-roast the nuts they can still be used to make a caffeine-free coffee substitute. Grind the shelled nuts in a coffee grinder then either use them as is or combine them with real coffee to make a pot of brown, somewhat bitter fluid.

Buy my book! Outdoor Adventure Guides Foraging covers 70 of North America's tastiest and easy to find wild edibles shown with the same big pictures as here on the Foraging Texas website.

Bastard Cabbage

Scientific Name(s): Rapistrum rugosum
Abundance: invasive
What: young leaves, flower buds, flowers, young seedpods
How: raw, cooked
Where: sunny ditches, fields, disturbed areas
When: late fall, winter, spring, early summer
Nutritional Value: minerals, vitamin C, antioxidants
Dangers:

Full plants seen along a roadside.






A single stalk of Bastard Cabbage. Note the alternating leaf pattern.


Close-up of flowers and flower buds.


Close-up of seedpods. Note the "beaks" extending from the tips of the pods away from the stem.


Close-up of the stem and unopened flower buds. Note the hairs.


Mature leaf of Bastard Cabbage.


A seedling of Bastard Cabbage.



Texas distribution, attributed to U. S. Department of Agriculture. The marked counties are guidelines only. Plants may appear in other counties, especially if used in landscaping.


North American distribution, attributed to U. S. Department of Agriculture.


There's a yellow-flowered invader lining the roadsides and taking over fields of Texas and the rest of North America and it's name is Bastard Cabbage! Wow, that was a lot of "and"s in that previous sentence. Oh well. These plants prefer cool weather, fall through spring, during which time they're unfortunately everywhere. On the plus side, being a member of the brassica (mustard) family, pretty much all parts of this invader from southern Europe are edible.

Starting at the top and working our way down the plant, it's flowers have the standard mustard-family structure of four petals (yellow in this case) in an "X" arrangement surrounding six stamens, four of which are long and two stamens are short. The flowers grow in bunches off the stem and before they blow the highly-packed clusters look like tiny heads of broccoli, which is also a member of the mustard family. Below the flowers are seedpods arranged in a spiral up the stem. Note the "beak" jutting out from the top of the seedpod away from the stem.

The stem itself is somewhat hairy branched. The leaves at its base are large, broad, deeply lobed, and form a rosette whereas the leaves closer to the tops of the stems will be elongated, narrow, and unloved or very shallowly lobed. Underground, bastard cabbage forms a heavy taproot, similar to that of horseradish.

How do I eat this invasive species? The flowers and green seedpods I like raw straight off the plant or added to salads. The broccoli-like flower buds are also eaten raw or cooked like broccoli florets (drizzled with cheese!) The younger, tender leaves are cooked like turnip/collard greens, sautéing them with some garlic and bacon. The younger, tender parts of the stem do well when cooked/steamed like asparagus. I have yet to experiment with the roots but suspect a low-grade "horseradish" sauce could be made from them.


Buy my book! Outdoor Adventure Guides Foraging covers 70 of North America's tastiest and easy to find wild edibles shown with the same big pictures as here on the Foraging Texas website.

Basswood/Linden

Scientific name: Tilia americana
Abundance: rare
What: flowers, leaves, buds, inner bark
How: leaves raw in salad, buds to nibble, flowers for tea, cambium (inner bark) raw or boiled for calories
Where: Sunny edges of woods
When: buds in late winter, young leaves spring/summer, flowers summer, cambium all year
Nutritional Value: Leaves contain vitamins and minerals, inner bark has carbohydrates
Other uses: cordage from bark, not a good firewood

Basswood tree used in urban landscaping.


Basswood leaf and flower/nut bract (long, narrow leaf-like thing).


Basswood flower cluster and flower bract.


Close-up of Basswood flowers.


Basswood leaves and seedpods.






Basswood leaves.


Almost-ripe Basswood nuts in the fall.


Ripe Basswood nuts.


Basswood bark.


Texas distribution, attributed to U. S. Department of Agriculture. The marked counties are guidelines only. Plants may appear in other counties, especially if used in landscaping.


North American distribution, attributed to U. S. Department of Agriculture.


Stately basswood trees range from 60 to 120 feet tall with shallowly-furrowed, somewhat greyish bark and round crowns. There are thirty species in North America with Tilia Americana and Tilia caroliniana being the most common in Texas. Basswoods prefer loose, well-drained soil with access to moisture, in particular river flood-plains and in low areas of woods.

The sweet sap, running in the spring before the leaf buds open, can be boiled down into a syrup or just drank as-is. Be sure to sterilize your tools before using them to cut or drill into the tree to collect sap or inner bark. This reduces the chance of a fungal infection striking the basswood.

A very delicious, spicy tea is made from the small flowers of basswood trees, which appear in the spring. The flowers can also be eaten raw. Bees love these flowers and often the tree can be found just by listening for the buzz of the hundreds of bees collecting its nectar. The resulting honey has a flavor imparted from the basswood nectar.

The young leaf buds and leaves can be eaten raw and have a slightly sweet flavor similar to the flowers. These parts can also be cooked like pot-herbs.

In the fall the nuts make a good trailside nibble while hiking, but only eat the inner meat, not the nuts’ outer shells.

The calorie-rich cambium layer, just under the bark, is stripped, finely diced, and boiled into a porridge-like mush to eat any time of the year. In Europe towards the end of World War II basswood sawdust was added to bread to try and produce enough loaves to fill everyone’s belly.

This cambium layer can be used to make strong fibers that can be woven into rope, containers and crude cloth. This inner bark must be soaked for up to two weeks to rot away the majority of the plant’s cells, leaving behind just the fibers. The wood itself is great for carving and for making the body of guitars.


Buy my book! Idiots Guide Foraging covers 70 of North America's tastiest and easy to find wild edibles shown with the same big pictures as here on the Foraging Texas website.
Buy my book! Outdoor Adventure Guides Foraging covers 70 of North America's tastiest and easy to find wild edibles shown with the same big pictures as here on the Foraging Texas website.

Bay Laurel

Scientific name: Laurus nobilis & Persea borbonia var. borbonia
Abundance: plentiful
What: nuts, leaves
How: roast nuts, used leaf as seasoning
Where: woods, borders
When: leaves all year, nuts in the fall
Nutritional Value: Calcium, iron, other minerals, vitamins A, C, B6, folate.
Other uses: nuts contain a mild stimulant
Dangers: Looks similar to the very poisonous cherry laurel. The leaves of cherry laurel smell like cherry/cyanide and have toothed edges while bay laurel leaves have smooth edges and smell like Italian seasoning.

Medicinal Summary:
Leaves - aid digestion; reduces bloating from gas; soothes skin, urinary tract and bronchial inflammations (tisane)

Young tree. They get much bigger with time.



Much older, larger bay tree!


Leaves closeup (Bay Laurel leaves have smooth edges)


Nuts


Dead leaves on a bay tree suffering Laurel Wilt. This fungal disease is transferred by an alien beetle and is wiping out our native bay trees. Currently there's no cure. :-(


Teeth (pointy bits along edge of leaves) + cyanide/cherry smell = poisonous cherry laurel. DO NOT EAT CHERRY LAUREL!!


Texas distribution, attributed to U. S. Department of Agriculture. The marked counties are guidelines only. Plants may appear in other counties, especially if used in landscaping.

I know these can be found in Montgomery County, TX.

North American distribution, attributed to U. S. Department of Agriculture.


Texas has multiple types of bay trees. Around Houston the most common are sweet bay (Laurus nobilis), redbay (Persea borbonia) and laurel cherry (Prunus caroliniana). All three grow in the same environment, preferably as understory trees in moist, shaded areas. Very slow growing, most you’ll find will be small trees around 20’ tall. However, mature trees can rival oaks in size and appearance. Crushed sweet bay and redbay leaves have a wonderful bay aroma while laurel cherry smells like bitter almonds or artificial cherry scent. That bitter almond smell is poisonous cyanide and the so the leaves of the laurel cherry should not be used as a seasoning or consumed in any other manner.

Besides scent, the toxic laurel cherry trees can be distinguished from safe sweet bay and redbay by the edges of their leaves. The sweet bay and redbay leaf edges will be smooth while the dangerous laurel cherry leaves will have teeth, ranging in number from two very small ones near the base to many all along the leaf edge.

The leaves of the sweet bay and redbay are available all year long and are added to sauces and other foods where one would traditionally use bay leaves. They do have a very potent flavor, so you usually don't need to add more than 3-4. They can be used fresh or dried. Add the leaves while cooking but remove them before serving as no bay leaves should actually be eaten. Supposedly these stiff, hard leaves can penetrate an intestine.

In the fall the dark nuts are toasted and then nibbled on as a strongly-flavored snack. Remove the soft flesh from the bay nut then roll the nuts around in a very hot pan until they start to split open. Remove the outer brittle husk then return the inner meat back to the pan for a final toasting. No oil or grease is needed. These toasted nuts can also be ground and used as a seasoning. 3-5 of these roasted seeds, when boiled in water then adding nutmeg and cinnamon make a very pleasant drink which tastes somewhat like coffee.

Our bay trees are currently under grave attack by a fungal disease transmitted by the invasive, Asian beetle Xyleborus glabratus. This fungal infection first shows up by branches dying and their leaves turning brown. Eventually the whole tree will die, taking with it the main birthplace of Palamedes Swallowtail butterflies. So this disease may not just wipe out one of the south's most common trees, it may also drive that butterfly to extinction, too.


Buy my book! Outdoor Adventure Guides Foraging covers 70 of North America's tastiest and easy to find wild edibles shown with the same big pictures as here on the Foraging Texas website.